What is the best way to get from Orlando to West Palm Beach?

It is a run south, about 170 miles by road; times vary a lot with traffic. That is the honest version — the number a map gives you is the version with no traffic, no rain and nobody else going the same way, and this route rarely offers all three.

Depending on the route, the options are a train where one runs (Brightline links Miami, Aventura, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach and Orlando), driving yourself, an app, or a car booked ahead (Brightline, n.d.). A train still leaves you at a station with your luggage; a car booked ahead goes door to door. Driving yourself means parking at the other end and staying dry, sober and unbothered for the whole run. An app means standing at the kerb hoping someone accepts a long fare, and the fare can change with demand. The longer the trip, the worse that trade gets.

Flying in, the choice is MCO or PBI. The nearer airport is not always the faster door-to-door once the drive is counted, and the concierge will say plainly which one works better for your timing.

Booked ahead, the car is yours for the whole run: one driver, one fare agreed before it starts, luggage handled at both ends, and a car that waits if you are late rather than leaving. If you are going West Palm Beach and back the same day, the same car and the same driver hold the return, which is usually the half people forget to plan.

Dinner here spreads across three districts that do not run into each other — Clematis Street at the water end of downtown, Rosemary Square a few blocks west, and Northwood Village north of both. A driver is what makes choosing between them unnecessary. Most of these trips end up somewhere around Clematis Street, Rosemary Square, Northwood Village.